Justice Dept. to review rash of attacks on police

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is preparing to review a rash of deadly attacks on police following the fatal shootings of 10 officers since Jan. 1.

Bernard Melekian, the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services director, said analysts would study whether deficits in training, resources or officer behavior may have contributed to a troubling series of violent attacks in at least five states.

The Justice review comes after two officers were shot to death in St. Petersburg, Fla., Monday while police in Miami were mourning the murders of two officers there.

"I have never seen anything like it," said Craig Floyd, chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which closely tracks officer deaths. "We must do everything in our power to stop these senseless and heinous crimes against our law-enforcement personnel," he said in a statement.

The January shootings follow a year in which overall police deaths increased 40 percent from 2009, including a 20 percent spike in the number killed by gunfire.

With less than a week left in the month, the 10 firearm-related police deaths so far mark the third-highest January total in the past 20 years, according to the police memorial fund.

"Coming off 2010, my gracious, it's a really bad way to start a new year," said Mark Marshall, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Marshall, the police chief in Smithfield, Va., said the association is just beginning to assemble a national database.

The database, part of the Center for the Prevention of Violence Against the Police, will be used to help determine whether new training or resources are needed.

"Clearly, there must be some common denominators out there," Marshall said. "If we can identify some of them, we can do some good, even if it means one less officer is killed. This is of great concern to us."

In recent years, police officials, including former Miami Police Chief John Timoney, have identified several factors contributing to the violence. Among them:

- More desperate offenders who are increasingly willing to target police.

- Officers' inconsistent use of body armor. Some, including the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, have suggested that up to half of all police do not wear armor regularly.

- Offenders' access to high-caliber weapons.

"In some of these recent shootings in St. Petersburg, Miami and Detroit, it seems like these people were ready and willing (to target police)," Marshall said.

Four officers were wounded Sunday in Detroit when a gunman entered a neighborhood police precinct station and opened fire.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law-enforcement think tank, said many of the encounters have pitted police against high-risk offenders being sought by police in more focused efforts to combat crime.

"In these high-risk encounters, we need to take a hard look at how police are approaching these situations," Wexler said.